Archives and Collections

Description of Collection:

Access to the archival and artifact collections of the Autry National Center Museum of the American West and the Southwest Museum of the American Indian is through the Institute for the Study of the American West's Autry Library or Braun Research Library. The Autry Library collects books, sound recordings, and printed materials related to the history, geography, fine arts, and material, popular and consumer culture of the American West. Archival materials and artifacts related to Los Angeles cover Spanish California, and Southern California history, tourism, and industry. The museum's strongest archival collection documents the West of the imagination and the Hollywood cowboy. Materials in the collection include posters, scripts, press kits, fan letters, costume designs, scrapbooks, and publicity stills that document the growth of the film and television industry as well as key personalities in the field. The Braun Research Library supports the activities of the Southwest Museum of the American Indian. This renowned collection is strong in the fields of ethnology, archaeology, linguistics, folklore, and the history of Arizona, California, and the Southwest. It collection related to Southern California includes books and serials on tribal histories, government, and social life and customs of the native peoples, a large photo archive, more than 700 wax cylinder recordings of Mexican American and Native American songs recorded by Charles F. Lummis between 1895 and 1912 in the Southern California area, manuscript materials strong in local history and the history of American anthropology. The collection includes approximately 50,000 books and serials, 2,000 sound recordings, 3,000 maps, 147,000 photographs, 3,000 works of art on paper, and 700 manuscript collections.